Turtles
by Periphery
Summary: The way I saw it, he first lost his home at the age of two . . . it has taken me until now to understand that I had it all wrong. Winner of the Home Teitho contest.


Disclaimer: I don't own Legolas, Aragorn, either of their families, or the ME tidbits I borrowed for this story, most of which are probably wrong. I own only a fisherman, a couple guards, and an as-yet-nameless maid who is demanding her own story.

Rating: K+ for mild language at the end.

Thanks to Maggie, who made the last scene happen. Bossily.

* * *

_120 F.A._

_He took nearly a hundred years to discover it, and I took even longer to understand._

_The way I saw it was this: he first lost his home at the age of two, to a band of marauding orcs. Again at twenty, to the knowledge of his heritage. Again when he left the rangers. And again . . . again . . . again._

_It has taken me until now to understand that I had it all wrong._

* * *

2956 T.A.

Aragorn took less than ten minutes to set up camp and throw himself down on his bedroll. Legolas eyed him with considerable amusement. "Making yourself at home?"

"Mmm." The man rolled toward him. "I could. Sleep here, make a table for over there" – he indicated the appropriate corner of the clearing – "put up some sort of roof, bring out a few books – I could."

Legolas shook his head and set about rooting out food from their packs. "You're not serious."

"No, I suppose not." Aragorn sighed and caught the piece of lembas tossed to him. "Too cold in winter. Now, a bit farther south . . . "

"_Daro!_" Legolas pegged him with the nearest acorn, causing the man to choke. "You speak nonsense.

Aragorn shook his head vehemently, coughed, and protested, "Nay. Why could I not?"

"You live in Imladris."

"Not anymore."

"Still," Legolas persisted, "'tis your home."

"Perhaps," the ranger said quietly, "or perhaps I have none, in which case I can make one wherever I choose."

Legolas frowned. "Estel . . . "

The man easily shrugged off his friend's concern and reached for his pack. "Do we have anything _other _than lembas?"

* * *

_120 F.A._

_He was simply born a wanderer, I suppose. I always thought of home as a place to come back to – assumed he felt the same way._

_He showed me his bedroll once – as though I hadn't seen it before – and said seriously, "I take it with me."_

_We had been talking about home, mine and his, but it took me a hundred sixty years to realize that "home" was what he meant._

* * *

2986 T.A.

"Apparently," Legolas said lightly, "my father is enjoying his vacation from me and would like to extend it." He folded up a letter from Mirkwood and passed it to the twins, glancing wistfully around Rivendell's gardens. "I must admit the scenery is nicer here."

"Excellent," Aragorn said vaguely. The chieftain of the Dunedain sat cross-legged on a bench, poring over a map of the Shire borders. He spared a moment to smile at Legolas before returning to the realignment of border patrol.

Elladan shook the letter to get the prince's attention. "Sounds like your father wants you well out of whatever's going on."

"Aye, and when I return, I shall send _him _away for a while."

"Please, don't send him here," Elrohir exclaimed, feigning horror; and the elves laughed. Elrohir gave a mock bow. "Stay as long as you wish," he said with exaggerated formality. "Our home is your home." He then rather ruined the effect by kicking his human brother in the shin.

Aragorn yelped and fixed a highly injured gaze on both twins. "What?" As an afterthought he added resentfully, "There's no need to kick. I have ears."

"That was yours to say," Elrohir told him.

"I think I've outgrown the manners lessons, thank you." When the twins grumbled and retreated, he looked to Legolas. "What was?"

The prince was bemused by the Elrondions' version of "manners lessons." "Er, that your home is my home. I think."

"Is that all?" Aragorn flipped a hand, spattering ink over the bench, and frowned at his map. "I'd have thought that would be apparent." Ignoring Legolas's increasing bewilderment, he wrote something on the map, studied it, and nodded in satisfaction.

* * *

_120 F.A._

_Later I asked him what he meant. He had already forgotten his words in the garden. When I relived the conversation for him, he frowned at me. "What do you mean, what did I mean? You've stayed here many times. I didn't think it necessary to remind you that you are always welcome."_

"_Apparently," I said, "I have multiple homes."_

"_Of course you do," he said complacently. "Don't we all?"_

* * *

3019 T.A.

"There you are!" Aragorn flung open the door to his chambers to admit his elven friend.

For a moment the Lord of Ithilien and the newly crowned King of Gondor simply looked at each other. "Here I am?" Legolas repeated, a faint smile playing about his lips.

"Aye, at last. What are you laughing at?"

"You," Legolas said simply. "I always knew you would do it someday, Estel."

Aragorn laughed and threw his arms around the elf, drew him inside. "Come." He proceeded to give Legolas a tour of the entire royal apartment, ending with a flourish in the sitting room.

"It's beautiful," Legolas said honestly.

"Yes." The king rubbed a hand across his face and looked around, bewildered. "Yes, it is."

Legolas cocked an eyebrow and waited.

"I keep expecting to go to sleep and wake up in the forest," Aragorn burst out. "In a tent somewhere . . . not _here._"

"Yet here it will be," his friend said quietly. "This is your home, now."

Aragorn groaned and dropped into the nearest chair. "But . . . " He glanced up when he felt the elf's hand on his shoulder. "I don't know, mellon-nin, I don't . . . "

"'Tis not about knowing or not knowing," Legolas told him. "Sometimes decisions are made for us – "

"I know that. I don't – I don't even know what I don't know." Desperately he sought his friend's eyes. "Legolas – "

The elf squeezed his shoulder. "It matters not," he soothed. "What matters it that Middle Earth is at peace, and we are home safe."

Slowly Aragorn's head bowed onto Legolas's arm. "_Hannon le._"

* * *

_120 F.A._

_He wasn't at all reassured, though. I could see it in his stance, in the crease between his brows. By the time of our next visit, the confusion had faded to a perpetual ghost in the back of his eyes._

_It would remain there for fifty years._

* * *

48 F.A.

Undergrowth rustled. Twigs snapped; tiny footsteps sounded on the packed earth. Aragorn chuckled quietly and leaned back against a tree, counting the seconds until his five-year-old son tumbled out of the bushes.

"Ada!" the boy shrieked, right on schedule, jumping into his father's lap. "How – " Aragorn held a finger to his lips. Obediently Eldarion lowered his voice to a loud whisper. "How'd I do?"

"Excellent," the king lied. It had, in fact, been marginally better than the last twelve attempts. "I could hardly hear you."

Eldarion beamed and latched onto his father's neck. "Can we go home now?"

"It took us three days to get here, _penneth._" Aragorn stood and hoisted the boy onto his hip.

"No." The prince shook his head in earnest. "We just left this morning."

"That was our camp, not home."

"But Nana's there, and Uncle Ell'dan, and El'hir, and Leg'las, and – "

"All right!" Aragorn laughed, starting down the path to said camp. "We're going!"

Content, Eldarion laid his head on his father's shoulder. The smile slipped from the king's face, and he spent the journey deep in thought.

* * *

_120 F.A._

_I could not explain how or why, but he came back from that camping trip subtly changed. When the White City came back into view, he glanced at it scarce a moment before returning his attention to his wife and son._

_When I returned to my own realm, I realized: the ghost in the back of his eyes, the one we had come to accept, was gone._

_Eleven years later my father sailed._

* * *

59 F.A.

Scarcely two days after Legolas returned from the Grey Havens, Aragorn knocked on the door of his chambers in Ithilien. "Legolas?"

"Estel," the elf returned wearily as he opened the door. "What, did you leave before I returned?"

"No, I made excellent time." Aragorn grinned, then quickly sobered, stepping into the room. He pulled the door shut behind him and clapped his friend on the back.

Legolas lifted one shoulder, answered the question before it was asked. "I am all right, I suppose."

"Really," the man said, entirely unconvinced.

"What do you want me to tell you, Estel? I accompanied _Ada _to the Havens. He left in one direction, I left in another, and my home – my home is empty!"

Aragorn looked rather startled at this but said nothing.

"I have to go back," Legolas continued abstractedly. "To – to make sure everything is in order – just in case – we're set to leave tomorrow."

"Do you want me to – "

"No." He smiled softly. "Thank you, mellon-nin, but . . . "

Aragorn nodded in understanding, a strange look crossing his face. Legolas looked at him closely. "What is it?"

"Hmm? Nothing," the man said innocently, then chuckled. "Honestly, I don't know what – "

"You're bursting to tell me something; what?"

The man's smile faded. "Now is not the time – "

"Why? Because of my family problems?" Aragorn tried to reply, but Legolas cut him off. "No, Estel. You're not leaving until you tell me."

"No."

Legolas narrowed his eyes. "You're being completely unreasonable."

For several moments they stared at each other, a face-off. It was Aragorn who backed down. "I was just thinking – "

"A likely story."

"Do you want me to tell you or not?" He drew in a deep breath, tried to clear his mind: he had never planned how to share this with anyone. "I – I realized something a while ago, and you reminded me of it just now."

"And this something is?" Legolas prompted.

Best to say it quickly, the man decided, and get it all over with. "There is no such thing as home. O-only – "

"Excuse me?" Legolas interrupted.

Aragorn closed his eyes. _I knew it . . ._ "What I mean is – "

"If home does not exist, how do you explain the fact that my home has been abandoned?"

"I only – "

"I would have expected your father to teach you to be considerate."

Turning red, Aragorn unconsciously raised his voice. "He did. In fact, the only thing my father _failed _to teach me was how to deal with an elf so pigheaded as yourself. Now if you'll excuse me, Your Majesty?" He proceeded to storm out, slamming the door in a most unkingly fashion.

* * *

_120 F.A._

_When I set out for Lasgalen, I was yet too angry to remember how much I hate parting on bad terms. Your Majesty, he had said – as though I _wanted _to be King of the Wood-Elves – as though I wouldn't do anything to change the fact that I now was. His father had sailed years before. He knew._

_My home, when I reached it, was not the home I remembered. Hallways echoed when I walked down them; there was no chatter in the courtyards. When I passed through the empty healing wing, memory struck: drifting in and out of consciousness, pain dogging every breath – a dark-haired man who never left my side._

_He couldn't have meant it the way it sounded. There is a fundamental impulse, one that forces us to say things we should not. No-one is immune, man or elf._

_So I swallowed my pride, dropped most of the guard in Ithilien, and rode straight on to the White City._

* * *

59 F.A.

"Ah, Lord Legolas," said the guard at the door to the royal chambers. "Here at last, I see."

"Is something wrong?" Legolas inquired.

"Oh, no. Only Elessar returned from his trip several days _early, _for a change, has been out of sorts ever since; and rumor has it – " He broke off as the door swung open and a maid backed out with a basket of laundry balanced on her hip.

A matronly woman whom Legolas vaguely recognized, she looked him up and down and harrumphed. "My lord," she acknowledged, inclining her head, then looked sidelong at the guard. "You ought to show him the door. The other door, mind you."

"I considered that, but 'tis not worth my job."

"Hmm." She fixed a piercing gaze on Legolas, who was beginning to look for an escape route. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

The elf was fairly sure that no stare had cowed him so since his schooling. "I need to see the king?" he offered.

"In council," the guard grunted. "You'll have to wait."

"I'll keep you company," the woman announced. "'Tis all anyone is talking about, is you and the king and your fight."

Legolas could feel a headache coming on. "I hadn't realized Elessar's private life is a public affair," he muttered.

"Gossip," she said matter-of-factly. "If you ask me, grown men can very well follow the same rules as I teach the little ones: play nice with your friends and don't call names; and my, if that man hasn't been droop-faced lately . . . "

Mercifully, Aragorn rescued him five minutes into her lecture. The maid wagged a finger at her king. "Don't you let him off soft now."

"No, ma'am," Aragorn said seriously, kissed her on the cheek, and drew Legolas into his sitting room.

"I've never been so happy to see you," the elf grumbled.

Aragorn laughed. "She's really very sweet, so long as you don't raise her hackles."

Apologies went unspoken but not unacknowledged. "I'm curious," Legolas confessed, sinking into the nearest chair. "What was the rest of that life truth you tried to share with me?"

Groaning, Aragorn sat across from him. "I started all wrong."

"So I gathered." A smile tugged at the elf's lips. "This time start the right way."

"I thought of that." Aragorn sighed and tipped his head back. "It's like this," he said after a moment. "People are like turtles."

"Turtles," Legolas repeated skeptically. "Little green creatures with wrinkly necks."

"Would you rather I used snails as a comparison?"

Legolas wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Nay, thank you."

"Turtles, then." Aragorn leaned forward in earnest. "It's the shells that are important, you see? They take their homes with them."

"People can't live in shells, Estel."

"No," the man agreed readily. "But who ever said that home is where one lives?"

Legolas cocked an eyebrow, thought better of it, and raised them both. "I'm fairly sure it's in the definition somewhere."

Aragorn shook his head. "But then it can change at any time, and home is supposed to be constant, see?" While the elf was mulling this over, he echoed his words from Ithilien. "There is no such thing as home. Only family." Legolas met his eyes, frowning slightly; the man smiled and finished: "And that we take with us everywhere."

After a moment of consideration, Legolas sighed, exasperated. "The last part made sense, anyway."

"It all makes sense," the king insisted.

The elf smirked. "Whatever you say, mellon-nin."

"Hush," Aragorn grumbled. "You'll see."

* * *

_120 F.A._

_The first time I rode out with the border patrol, I got homesick. Naturally I let no-one know. But when the palace gate came back into view – after a patrol that had surely taken several lifetimes – I could have kissed it._

_I thought of that after our bizarre discussion, thought of Lasgalen now – empty – and firmly pushed almost all of it out of mind._

_Around that time his elder daughter brought home a tiny turtle she had found in the woods and determined to mother. The poor girl never understood why her father and uncle laughed quite so hard at her._

* * *

120 F.A.

Mounted outside the city, his few guards anxious to leave, Legolas contemplated Minas Tirith as one might an ugly artwork: trying to pinpoint what is wrong with it. For over a century he had thought of the City as a second home, had expected somehow to feel something on leaving it behind for the last time. Instead, only a week after the death of King Elessar, the gleaming white towers held nothing for the elf. Dispassionately he cataloged the windows and turrets, stored an image away on the off chance that he would ever care to remember.

"My lord," murmured the elven guard beside him. Legolas turned his head, eyed him remotely. "Where do we go now?"

_Home,_ Legolas thought; but something broke inside him and he felt himself sag atop his horse. Where was home, anymore?

Ithilien first, to set things in order, and then the Havens. He knew exactly where he would go, but he couldn't find the words to say it. Home – Ithilien. Home – Valinor. Home – no such thing.

Only family.

"Wherever the damned turtles go," he muttered aloud.

"My lord?"

"Ithilien," Legolas amended. "And the Havens." He glanced at the City one last time, half-hoping the sight would strike a chord – but for naught. Then he turned his gaze upon the road to Ithilien, a path that no longer welcomed him; and he rode forward anyway, leaving the confused guard to follow, because finally he understood.

* * *

_120 F.A._

_Aragorn – _

_Today I met an old fisherman whose hobby, he tells me, is studying the migration of sea creatures. He spent at least fifteen minutes describing how the sea turtles' nesting season is over, how now they are returning to the sea._

_The moment the word "turtle" passed his lips, I looked around to catch your eye. But you weren't there. Luckily the old man was oblivious to my inattention. You would like him._

_I excused myself as soon as I could do so politely and found a secluded spot in the forest. I laughed so hard, Estel. For your eyes only: I laughed until I cried, and then I wept for a long time._

_You were right all along, __mellon-nin_, _about turtles. I'm sorry I did not realize it when first you tried to tell me. I overreacted. Forgive me._

_I was taught that Valinor is the natural home of all Eldar. Not home, I see now, but merely a place to stay. Yet I am going home, Estel, for my surviving family lives across the sea. For all these years I carried them with me. Now I carry you. Always._

_Until we meet again – _

_Legolas_

* * *

120 F.A.

He reads the letter over once, then wads it up into a ball of parchment that pains his hand when he closes his fist, and decides to stay the night out here. His companion is used to his wandering off and will only grumble something about "flighty elves." Here he can have solitude.

Thinking to start a fire, he gets as far as the first log before rocking back on his heels, trying to remember why he is doing this. After a moment of consideration he shrugs and continues on, building up the kindling and tinder just as he has done so many times, the ghost of a man by his side. His hands tremble as he sets the wood alight, but he keeps at it, stokes up a blaze hot enough to warm the coldest soul.

Conscious of the letter abandoned behind him, he picks it up without looking back and smoothes it out to glance over one final time. The ink is smudged now, the parchment wrinkled, but no matter. He folds it neatly into thirds, then thirds again, holds it flat between his palms, and tosses it into the heart of the fire.

The edges go first, consumed by blue flame; and the fire eats at the rest almost leisurely, layer by layer, briefly illuminating fragments of words in careful script. One corner seems to want to stay, but he watches, unblinking, until it is all gone.

All gone, he thinks – except that there is something left.

Eyes bright, Legolas tips his head to the sun and watches smoke curl into the sky.

_-finis-_

* * *

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